Colorado College Theatre & Dance Department

**AUDITION DATES DROPPING SOON**

Get ready for William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream – reimagined and reworked by Professor Shannon R. Davis.

It’s Summer, 2012, (before the Mayan calendar ends in December), and the setting is a huge music festival in the forest.

Hermia is a singer navigating a music scene where her voice is both her greatest asset and her most contested resource, as competing bands vie for her to be their lead.

This adaptation treats the chaos of Midsummer not as harmless mischief, but as a reflection of systems that confuse desire, manipulate consent, and profit from disorientation.

At the same time, it honors the genuine joy, connection, and creative risk that festivals can hold...with drugs, cryptid fairies, sc****ly clad millennials, coal miners making terrible theatre, and local student groups putting on a talent show, as it asks: “What does it mean to wake up after the music stops?”

We’re looking for ACTORS, STAGE CREW, TECH CREW, CREATIVES and more to take part in our main stage spring theatre production. All students from all disciplines are welcome and encouraged! Stay tuned for audition dates in Block 1!

Summer slows wayyyyy down at the Department of Theatre & Dance, and our spaces have gone noticeably more quiet.

The empty marquis sign, costume-less mannequins, and quiet reading and rehearsal rooms feel extra peaceful as the faculty, staff (and a few students) work quietly in the cool spaces of Cornerstone and Cossitt…before it all kicks off again in August.

(If you find yourself in Cornerstone, be sure to wave hello to Tawni, our superstar Admin Assistant, holding down the fort and expertly balancing budgets like a boss. 😎👋)

Students! Summer break is in full swing, but take a moment today to sign up for fall classes that are filling up fast.

Led by Ron “Future” Jules, our Hip Hop Dance courses explore the social and historical context of hip hop dance, while building and improving skills like popping, locking, and breaking as you take on choreographed routines set to a soundtrack of classic and contemporary hip hop music.

Think hip hop dance isn’t for you? Think again. This dance form is a high-energy, full-body workout that builds cardiovascular endurance, muscle strength, and flexibility. These skills can augment other dance disciplines, as well as sports and performance, while providing mental health benefits like reduced stress and boosted endorphins. (It’s also a LOT of fun.)

Explore the joy of self-expression and explore hip hop dance’s rich cultural heritage in these two classes, filling up fast:

Hip Hop Dance | DS231
(for beginners)

Hip Hop Performance | DS340
(for more experienced dancers who have completed Hip Hop Dance)

Register on Banner today!

In a joyful last senior gathering, our graduating Theatre & Dance class of 2026 joined faculty and staff on the terrace of Ryze Skyline Lounge last week to enjoy drinks, dinner, and a drop-dead view of Tava-kaavi.

As they mingled and made short work of the delicious food and drinks, students and staff alike looked back fondly over four years of memories, while excitedly sharing what was next. As the light fell and the sun set behind the mountain, the seniors jumped up in unison for one final impromptu shimmy, prompted – of course – by someone shouting, “And a 5-6-7-8!”

Today, as they don their robes and head to Commencement, we want to congratulate our Class of 2026 on their momentous day.

From all of us in Theatre & Dance to all of you: m***e and break a leg. We can’t wait to see what you do next.
👏🏻🙌🏻💃🩰🎭❤️

With students ranging from varsity athletes to microbiology majors, Professor Patrizia Herminjard’s popular Body in Motion class encourages curiosity, collaboration, and the creative use of our bodies as a source of knowledge and communication.

We joined the class in Cossitt Hall Gym last week and found the students working in pairs to create unique phrases using different chairs as props. As they explored movement and composition, Patrizia looked on, encouraging improvisation while guiding them to be mindful of how each phrase might fit into the broader piece. As the students tangled, climbed, and moved in, on, and around the chairs – punctuated by bursts of laughter or applause – each phrase demonstrated how possibility thinking, openness, and a willingness to try (and sometimes fail) can be beneficial to the process.

With no experience needed to participate, the introductory Body in Motion course invites students of all disciplines to explore their movement potential, while laying a foundation for the application of dance practices as a useful tool for subsequent courses and activities – dance or otherwise.

In the light-drenched North Studio in Cossitt Hall, Professor Shannon R. Davis’ Acting students spent a recent afternoon rehearsing “Say Their Names”, a play by Indigenous poet, playwright, and author Marcie Rendon.

Working for the first time with the props and text for the piece, the students, guided by verbal prompts from Professor Davis and student choreographer Ella Boyd Brocker, moved around the space in various dynamic exercises designed to explore body and spatial awareness, while encouraging the group to move in unison – a useful skill when working as a chorus.

“Say Their Name” was performed on May 5th at the National Day of Theatre Readings for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives, organized by and held at the . The National Day of Action, held annually on May 5th, shines a light on the crisis of violence facing Indigenous women and relatives, honors the lives of the missing and murdered, and brings attention to the ongoing need for advocacy, policy change, and protection.

We stopped by Contemporary Dance on a grey afternoon to catch Instructor Adam Dickerson working on two new pieces of choreography with his students for their upcoming Spring Showcase on May 8th.

As Adam warmed the students up and began to run through the pieces, Cossitt Hall filled with laughter, movement - and even a few sound effects - as the students rehearsed.

Adam described the first dance, conceived in Brooklyn, as more of a “trippy somatic” piece, while the second features more modern choreography set to the music of The Jackson 5. The energy was high as Adam led his dancers through each phrase, cheering encouragement as the dancers gracefully moved across the floor.

Join us to see Adam’s students perform the two works (and much more) in the Spring Dance Showcase on May 8th at 7pm in Cossitt Hall. All are welcome!

🌷🌷It’s the Spring Dance Showcase! 🌷🌷

Meet us in Cossitt Gym and support students from West African Dance & Drumming, Chore Lab, Hip Hop Performance, and Contemporary Dance as we celebrate their achievements in the last showcase of the academic year!

Featuring vibrant choreography from Dallo Fall, Adam Dickerson, Ron Jules, and Patrizia Herminjard, you’re invited to an evening of artistry, musicality, and movement.

May 8 | 7pm
Cossitt Gym

In the final thesis presentation of our ‘26 seniors, Beth O’Neill and Jacks Sawyer capped off a month of exceptional student work with “Signal Received”, an experiential art, dance, photography, and film installation.

Creating three unique interactive pieces, Jacks Sawyer invited visitors to dance, create, and explore connection and communication, using Raspberry Pi programming, LiDAR motion capture, AI, and an Xbox Kinect sensor.

“Language Barrier” explored the gap between intention and understanding – inspired by the artist’s own struggles to properly articulate themself – through the distortion of language as it is translated over and over again. “Happy Accident Machine” used a circuit-bending video synthesizer, inviting visitors to twist k***s with purposely vague parameters in order to randomly generate patterns on a screen, encouraging the user to enjoy ephemeral outcomes that are never really reproducible, and created without a clear understanding of how. Finally, “Digital Dance Instructor” used LiDAR motion capture fed through an XBox Kinect sensor to track the user, with added random data inputs that made it impossible to ever quite sync. With continued use, the user discovers they exert more control over the instructor than they thought.

Beth O’Neill presented a multimedia interdisciplinary exploration that included a dance film and live performance, with a photography series. The dance film and live performance, entitled “Sensory Seeking”, sought to explore the ways stimming, unmasking, and other self-regulating techniques create a better quality of life while contributing uniquely to the arts. Choreographed, directed, partially scored, and performed by the artist, Beth shared how, “...in the quiet stillness of dancing – rocking back and forth, spinning, music loud, shaking, dancing until everything falls into place. This movement is where my world expands.” The accompanying photography series, entitled “Submerged”, captured in still life the tranquility and peace the artist describes when “completely, totally submerged.”

Congratulations to Beth and Jacks on their outstanding senior thesis presentations.👏🏻